Trip to Denmark

Everyone always wishes they had traveled more before they have to leave a place, so we're trying to get around as much as possible since everything is so close and before the boys start school in September. I have always wanted to go to Denmark, so a few weeks ago Marc surprised us with booking tickets to Copenhagen! The day finally arrived, we packed our bags and walked about one quarter mile to a little train station in our town.

That train took us to the Frankfurt airport from where we flew about one and a half hours to Copenhagen. Now that is my kind of flight. I don't think Doren screamed once which is some kind of record. From the CPH airport we took the metro a few stops and then walked five blocks to the AirBnB apartment we found. I love how easy it is to get around Europe. We did all of that with no car seats or taxis. The owner of the apartment let us in, showed us around, then left us on our own. It was a tiny, adorable, two-bedroom apartment in a large, old building.

The building is about two city blocks long and one block wide with a courtyard in the center.

A typical impossibly steep staircase from the kitchen to the interior courtyard.

Et voila! It's a wonderland of fun in the courtyard. This is the solution to not having a yard. This common space runs the entire two block length of the buildings with picnic tables, sandboxes, and covered areas to park bikes and strollers.

Despite a few hundred people sharing this common space, it was clean, trash-free and beautiful. I expected nothing less in Denmark!

There were several of these laundry lines around the courtyard for people to hang their clothes since no one has a dryer. Love it!

Where on earth are we now?

Betwixt the buildings

We found a really cool bakery/breakfast place down the street from the apartment with great coffee and cute little jugs of fresh-squeezed orange juice.

A typical breakfast of a bun, some cheese, an egg and meusli. The bread is ah-may-zing!

Marc's breakast.

 Cute little pancakes for the boys. The syrup was real vanilla bean! I would have licked the bowl if there weren't so many people around.

Kids (not mine) jumping into the river.

We had to stop at the Lego store!

Ahhh...I love seeing all the pieces organized into colors.

In the Children's section of the National Museum. They got to dress up like peasants and fight with wooden swords. (Not a real horse)

Playing Vikings for hours while Marc and I took turns seeing the rest of the museum. (That crawler isn't Doren.)

Tobin always says he has growing pains so he's getting a free ride.

Bad photo inside Tivoli, a huge amusement park in the middle of the city. It was so unique and beautiful.

Me...loving it all.

Sandbox for grown-ups. The Danes were out in droves soaking up as much sun as possible before the dark, cold winter sets in, ohh, next week.

On a boat tour. This place is OH-uld!

He's turned into a good little traveler.

Tons of bikes everywhere (but still not as much as Amsterdam).

A tower with an exterior staircase

We walked through Christiania, a free commune in the city, and I promise all I bought was that scarf.

Besides my scarf, a key chain and some real salt licorice (they're really into licorice), all we brought home are these two Duplo Lego grass plates we found at a flea market. This is definitely the best souvenir to bring home from the land of Lego!

 

We took a lot more pictures and did other cool stuff but its late and I'm trying to keep it simple. Besides being generally beautiful people, the Danes were so friendly. I don't understand how they all speak such perfect English. Unlike other countries where its polite and appropriate to ask in the native language if someone can speak English before you start talking, I think the Danes would think someone ridiculous for asking that question. So its a great place to go for any English-speaker worried about not being able to communicate. Trust me, you will have no trouble. We had a wonderful time in Copenhagen and I can see why the Danes are the happiest people on earth!